Whiffs of peace on the Korean peninsula, why Nigeria should care
Finally, the world heaved a sigh of relief. The leaders of North and South Korea had sat down and talked and laughed together. South Korea’s, Moon Jae-In even made an unscripted, impromptu ten-second trip to North Korea, where his parents were born, skipping over the barrier that separates the two countries since 1950. This was done at the prompting of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Having visited the Korean border myself, it was easy to visualise this scene, clips of which have been viewed hundreds of times online already.
Those April 27th events in Panmunjeom were followed keenly across the world, from Washington, where President Donald Trump had previous been firing puerile tweets at his North Korean counterpart, to Beijing, which has been firmly on the other end from the US and Abuja, which has largely been on the fence ever since.
In Abuja, there was palpable excitement before the summit, with the South Korean embassy scrambling to organise a viewing session for journalists in Abuja. The North Korean embassy remained characteristically mute.
When I visited the North Korean Embassy to gauge the pulse, I met a female official at the gate. She seemed confused that I wanted to see the ambassador, pointing at the sign that states Embassy of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. I nodded, and she gestured for me to wait. Moments later a man emerged, his English just as ineffective as his colleague’s, his gestures mimicking hers, pointing at the same sign. He too disappeared back into the building. When the third North Korean diplomat emerged, he spoke better English with an American accent. He photographed my ID card, mentioned something about being open to an interview as long as my questions are not security sensitive, and promised to set it up via email.
The question I wanted to ask the most was why does the summit matter to Nigeria?
“North Korean nuclear threat is a global one and therefore it is crucial for the entire world because Nigeria is a crucial member of the international community,” Deputy Head of Mission Mr Ying-min Song of the South Korean Embassy in Abuja said.
“As the leader of [the] African continent and beyond, I look forward Nigeria’s support,” the ambassador, Mr Lee In-tae said after the summit while addressing questions from journalists. He was new to the post, just like his North Korean counterpart.
From Seoul, the Nigerian support had come already when the Nigerian ambassador there, Alhaji Amin Dalhatu said in a statement, “Nigeria as a peaceloving country is ready to continue to be supportive of any peace initiative, either bilaterally or multilaterally in order to bring about lasting peace on the peninsula.”
The South Koreans seem to think there should be more. After all, a former Nigerian minister, Dr. Amina Mohammed is now the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations and the country has held nonpermanent member status at the UN, the deputy ambassador pointed out.
Considering that trade relations between Nigeria and South Korea has hit N3.02 trillion as announced by the Nigerian Charge D’affaires to the country, Lazarus Basaba last September at a business summit in Busan. The trade volume swings in favour of the Asian country. And Seoul has been doing lots of cultural diplomacy in Nigeria over the last ten years, offering scholarships to Nigerians to study there.
Any kind of conflicts on that peninsula would affect these trades and affect Nigerian business with interest in Korea.
Where the case with the South is clear, with the North it remains sketchy. There are no publicly available records of the trade volume between the two countries but it is clear there have been dealings between the two. Only in 2014, the two countries signed an economic cooperation agreement aimed at strengthening ties in the areas of “knowledge exchange, information technology, and public sector exchanges of modern technology,” according to reports
The agreement will “facilitate the exchange of experts, technicians, and university professors between the DPRK and Nigerian universities.”
That agreement was signed at the end of the fourth session of Nigeria-DPRK meeting in Abuja. There might be other dealings that have remained under the radar. In 2013 for instance, three North Korean doctors were killed by Boko Haram in Northeast Nigeria. Not many Nigerians had known there were North Korean doctors in Nigeria and the two governments have been evasive when questioned about what the doctors were doing in Nigeria in the first place.
Mr. Kim Chon Il, an undersecretary at the North Korean Embassy, who photographed my ID, and his ambassador despite promising to do so, have still not responded to my emailed questions.
Attitudes such as this, among other things, have made people sceptical about North Korea and their pledges.
Despite the optimism about the deal, which aims to bring a permanent end to the armistice that has been in place since 1953, pausing but not ending the war between North and South Korea, this would not be the first time such a pledge was made.
There were peace talks in 1992 and the language of that meeting’s communique has a striking resemblance to this one. The same phrase was rehashed in the 2007 summit. And yet again in the ‘historic’ Panmunjeom Declaration signed this April.
Questions have also been asked about the timing of the summit coming just after Kim Jong Un is widely suspected to have acquired nuclear weapons. Others think that with the weapons and the security of his regime guaranteed from external threats, he could now negotiate from a position of strength.
“You can never be sure of the commitment of North Korea but the summit will be continuous. We are not 100 per cent sure, nobody is but the indications are a move towards peace,” Mr. Song Said.
As early as August 15, Liberation Day in the two Koreas, the countries will take a crucial emotional step to reuniting its people, even if temporarily. With plans to kick start again the visits of family members, most of them in their advanced ages, who have been separated since the war in the 1950s. This visits have been a contentious issue over the years with the last one taking place in 2015, before escalating tensions interfered with that.
But with talks scheduled between President Trump and Chairman Kim for June 12 in Singapore, the world yet again will hold its breath, hoping this time a permanent peace will come out of this so Koreans across the border could live without the threat of bombs over their heads. Nigerian businesses and students in Korea can breathe a sigh of relief too.